Spider Webs and Clotheslines: Autumn is Here

We have had an amazingly long and beautiful summer here in Seattle – oh wait – it’s autumn already!  I rather feel like I’m living in an alternate universe; this uncharacteristic dry and warm weather feels like we’ve been transported to California.  I can’t remember the last time it rained, but I can definitely say that I DON’T MISS THE RAIN ONE IOTA!

I have been able to continue on with hanging laundry outside on the clothesline, even in October.  But there are a few subtle clothesline-hanging differences that come with the change of seasons – mainly spiders and their webs in the fall.

I like spiders, when they are outside the house, that is.  I love how they are so industrious, spinning their webs with amazing speed in unusual places.  I really like it when they trap those pesky mosquitoes and bugs in their webs.  Inevitably there are always one or two giant webs on the clothesline, like there were this morning.  I always try to be respectful of the spider’s work, and hang my laundry around the web, but more often than not I will catch the perilous attaching line and off it comes.  And then I feel bad.  But I try.

Sometimes the spider will huffily get back to work spinning a new web, which makes me feel better.  My laundry can dry in peace, and the spider gets a new home.  😀

“Bittersweet October.  The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.”  ~Carol Bishop Hipps

-Marilyn Huttunen